ERIC EJ1098484: Older than Snow: The "Two Cultures" and the "Yale Report" of 1828

2007·0.13 MB·English

by  ERIC

Forum on Public Policy
Older Than Snow: The Two Cultures And The Yale Report Of 1828
William Todd Timmons, Associate Professor of Mathematics and History of Science,
University of Arkansas—Fort Smith

Abstract
C.P. Snow’s The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution represents the most famous reincarnation of a
debate concerning the clash of academic cultures in higher education. This essay explores the similarities
and differences in the circumstances surrounding Snow’s lecture addressing a widening gap between the
scientific and literary cultures of the mid-twentieth century and the reactions to a similar “clash of cultures”
in antebellum America. This nineteenth century episode was a debate between the traditional culture of
classical education and the nascent culture of practical, professional education. The traditional culture in
higher education was vigorously and eloquently defended in a report composed by the faculty at Yale
College. Although the time and circumstances were different, the parallels between the arguments heard in
1959 and those put forth in 1828 are remarkably similar.

Introduction
In his famous Two Cultures lecture of 1959, C.P. Snow concluded his analysis of the
divide between the traditional literary culture and the recently evolving culture of science
by calling for educational reform as a proposed bridge between the two:
Closing the gap between our cultures is a necessity in the most abstract
intellectual sense, as well as in the most practical…. For the sake of the
intellectual life, for the sake of this country’s special danger, for the sake of the
western society living precariously rich among the poor, for the sake of the poor
who needn’t be poor if there is intelligence in the world, it is obligatory for us and
the Americans and the whole West to look at our education with fresh eyes.1

Over a century earlier, in America, another writer asked a similar question. The two
cultures in conflict were different, but the nature of the conflict—as well as the author’s
proposal to bridge the gap between the cultures—was substantially the same:
The man of science is often disposed to assume an air of superiority, when he
looks upon the narrow and partial views of the mere artisan. The latter in return
laughs at the practical blunders of the former. The defects in the education of
both classes would be remedied, by giving them a knowledge of scientific
principles, preparatory to practice.2

1 C.P. Snow, Two Cultures: And a Second Look. An Expanded Version of the Two Cultures and the
Scientific Revolution (Cambridge: The University Press, 1964), 50.
2 Reports on the Course of Instruction in Yale College; By a Committee of the Corporation, and the
Academical Faculty (New Haven: Printed by Hezekiah Howe, 1828), 17-18.
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This second quote comes from the Yale Report, a response by the faculty of Yale to a call
for change to the college curriculum in order to accommodate shifting needs in American
society. In this essay, I will seek to highlight the parallel crises that facilitated Snow’s
Two Cultures lecture and the Yale Report, while discussing the similarities—as well as
the differences—between the two responses.

The Two Cultures
C. P. Snow’s “Rede Lecture” of 1959, titled the The Two Cultures and the
Scientific Revolution, brought to a boil a question that had simmered for some time
among scientists and non-scientists alike. Snow bemoaned the ever-widening chasm
between scientists and the literary elite—a chasm that Snow found especially pronounced
within the inner sanctums of Oxford and Cambridge. Snow was a scientist by training,
but a novelist by vocation. He thought himself uniquely qualified to comment upon the
communication barriers he found between the culture of the literary elite and the culture
of the scientist:
I felt I was moving among two groups—comparable in intelligence, identical in
race, not grossly different in social origin, earning about the same incomes, who
had almost ceased to communicate at all, who in intellectual, moral and
psychological climate had so little in common that instead of going from
Burlington House or South Kensington to Chelsea, one might have crossed an
ocean.3

Among Snow’s goals in the Two Cultures lecture was to investigate this lack of
communication and make suggestions for remedies. In the process, Snow produced what
many in the literary elite considered a blatant frontal attack.

3 Snow, 2.
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Snow asserted that although scientists may have a pessimistic view towards the
condition of individuals (we all die alone), they held a more optimistic view of the human
condition. Scientists tend to seek out what may be done to help the human condition. By
the same token:
The non-scientists have a rooted impression that the scientists are shallowly
optimistic, unaware of man’s condition. On the other hand, the scientists believe
that the literary intellectuals are totally lacking in foresight, peculiarly
unconcerned with their brother men, in a deep sense anti-intellectual, anxious to
restrict both art and thought to the existential moment.4

Snow continued his attack on the self-righteousness of the literary elite. These
intellectuals scoff at scientists who have not read major works of literature. Yet the same
literary dons do not know the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which, according to
Snow, is the scientific equivalent to Shakespeare. For Snow, “the great edifice of modern
physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about
as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors would have had.”5
Snow’s call for a better understanding between the cultures of science and
literature was in part a plea for a revision of the British education system in order to
address the profound new needs arising from the Industrial Revolution. He maintained
that Western intellectuals, outside of scientists, had not understood—even rejected—the
Industrial Revolution. Calling the literary intellectuals “natural Luddites,” Snow went so
far as to accuse the establishment of using the wealth produced by the Industrial
Revolution to train young men for the purpose of perpetuating the culture.6 Worse yet (at
least from Snow’s viewpoint), while the traditional Western culture reaped the fruits of

4 Ibid., 5.
5 Ibid., 15.
6 Ibid., 22.
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the advances in science and technology, the third world struggled. For Snow, “one truth
is straightforward. Industrialization is the only hope of the poor.”7
The Rede Lecture ignited debate from both ends of the academic spectrum.
Literary critic F. R. Leavis launched a particularly vicious attack on the Two Cultures
lecture and on Snow himself. In his “Richmond Lecture” of 1962, Leavis claimed that it
was “ridiculous to credit him [Snow] with any capacity for serious thinking about the
problems on which he offers to advise the world….”8 Leavis found Snow completely
ignorant of the history of recent civilization and of the human history of the Industrial
Revolution. He disparaged Snow as someone who “doesn’t know what he means, and
doesn’t know he doesn’t know.”9
The Snow-Leavis controversy dominated the early history of debate over Snow’s
Two Cultures lecture, and continues to play a role in the discussion today. A part of the
evolving debate involved claims about various means by which the chasm between the
two cultures might be bridged. Snow himself hoped initially that social history might
serve as such a bridge; later he invested his hopes in the history of science, “not to bridge
a cultural divide, but to serve as a refuge for the reading of progress in history.”10 While
Snow placed his hopes in history of science, Leavis steadfastly maintained that “The
sources for understanding social conditions and historical change were not parish
registers [i.e. historical statistics] but great writers.” It was literature, according to
Leavis, that “provided the essential point of entry into assessing the state of any

7 Ibid., 25.
8 F. R. Leavis, Two Cultures? The Significance of C. P. Snow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1963), 16.
9 Ibid., 29.
10 Guy Ortolano, “Human Science or a Human Face? Social History and the ‘Two Cultures’ Controversy,”
Journal of British Studies 43, Issue 4 (Oct 2004): 504.
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civilization….”11 Although the debate has expanded, it has come no closer to a
conclusion. This should not come as a surprise, however, since Snow’s lecture did not
really open the debate, but simply restated an issue that has arisen in various contexts at
various times throughout history.

The Yale Report
For students of American history, the year 1828 rings a familiar bell—the year
Andrew Jackson was elected president, signifying a victory for the “common man” in the
young democracy. As part of this newfound political voice, Americans were also
questioning the traditional higher education system. More and more American voices
were rising in protest demanding that higher education be changed to meet the unique
needs of a growing mercantile nation. Several decades earlier, Benjamin Rush, a
physician and chemistry professor at the College of Philadelphia, who also happened to
be a signer of the Declaration of Independence, summarized this thinking:
We occupy a new country. Our principle business should be to explore and apply
its resources, all of which press us to enterprize [sic] and haste. Under these
circumstances, to spend four or five years in learning two dead languages, is to
turn our backs upon a gold mine, in order to amuse ourselves catching
butterflies.12

Such rhetoric led to a request by Noyes Darlin—who happened to be a Yale alumnus,
judge, state senator, and member of the College Corporation—that Yale president
Jeremiah Day investigate the possibility of changing the curriculum to reflect the
changing needs of the country. Day formed a committee charged with considering the
consequences of omitting the study of the dead languages as a curricular requirement at

11 Ibid., 500.
12 Quoted in Melvin I. Uroksky, “Reforms and Response: The Yale Report of 1828,” History of Education
Quarterly 5, no. 1 (March, 1965): 53.
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Yale College. Furthermore, the committee was to consider whether Yale might either
require a knowledge of these languages for entrance or offer the languages to those who
“choose to study them after admission.”13 This committee, composed of President Day
and the Governor of Massachusetts, among other luminaries, immediately asked the
faculty to review the subject and write a report outlining their recommendations.
The report produced by the faculty of Yale College was composed of two parts.
The first was a summary of the plan of education at the college and the second was “an
inquiry into the expediency of insisting on the study of the ancient languages.”14 In part
one, the faculty argued that the “appropriate object of a college” is to “LAY THE
FOUNDATION OF A SUPERIOR EDUCATION.”15 The report reiterates this thesis
many times over:
The object [of a college education] is not to finish his education; but to lay the
foundation, and to advance as far in rearing the superstructure, as the short period
of his residence here will admit. If he acquires here a thorough knowledge of the
principles of science, he may then, in a great measure, educate himself. He has, at
least, been taught how to learn.16

In pursuit of this educational goal, the Yale faculty maintained the need for a curriculum
that instilled mental discipline and developed the furniture of the mind. They argued, and
continued to argue throughout the report, that a traditional literary education was an ideal
conduit through which to attain these goals:
The question is then presented, whether the college shall have all the variety of
classes and departments which are found in academies; or whether it shall confine
itself to the single object of a well proportioned and thorough course of study. It
is said that the public now demand, that the doors should be thrown open to all;
that education ought to be so modified, and varied, as to adapt it to the exigencies
of the country, and the prospects of different individuals; that the instruction

13 Reports, 3.
14 Ibid., 3.
15 Ibid., 6.
16 Ibid., 14.
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given to those who are destined to be merchants, or manufacturers, or
agriculturalists, should have a special reference to their respective professional
pursuits.17

In short, the faculty response was that while they supported professional training and
education, the responsibility for such education should fall on the academies and
professional schools, not on the colleges. The college, as a literary institution, held to
higher standards than academies. To succumb to pressure to change these higher
standards might, in the short run, result in more students, but in the long term would lead
to the destruction of the reputation of the college.18
After defending the traditional curriculum, the faculty proceeded to argue that
such a curriculum was actually better suited to the needs of the United States than one
that would provide only a partial, or specialized, education. The faculty maintained that
“Our republican form of government renders it highly important, that great numbers
should enjoy the advantage of a thorough education.”19 In Europe, where only a few elite
were destined for public service, the mass of people had no need for higher education.
However, in America, “where offices are accessible to all who are qualified for them,”
and where “Merchants, manufacturers, and farmers, as well as professional gentlemen,
take their places in our public councils,” the opportunity for a thorough education is of
the utmost importance.20
In the second part of the Yale Report, the committee charged with the original
investigation supported the findings of the faculty. They agreed that maintaining the
current mode of instruction was vital to the nation’s interests. The committee supported

17 Ibid., 24.
18 Ibid., 26.
19 Ibid., 29.
20 Ibid.
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the argument that classical learning was particularly well-suited to the needs of the
nation. The study of ancient literature by a young American student “can hardly fail to
imbue his mind with the principles of liberty, to inspire the liveliest patriotism, and to
excite to noble and generous action.”21 Such study, then, was “peculiarly adapted to the
American youth.”22
The Yale Report was extremely influential in ante-bellum higher education. After
the report was reprinted in the American Journal of Science and Arts in 1829, its message
spread throughout the country. The list of American colleges implementing or
continuing the basic plan of education laid out by the Yale Report is long: Middlebury
College, Western Reserve, Illinois College, the University of Alabama, the College of
California,23 Miami of Ohio, Randolph-Macon, DePauw, Beloit College, the University
of Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina24 is only a sample of such imitators of
the Yale model. Princeton was also a bastion of classical education and its faculty
supported the conclusions of the Yale faculty.25 In response to proposed changes to the
classical curriculum at Harvard a year before the appearance of the Yale Report, the
Western Review editorialized:
Should the time ever come when Latin or Greek should be banished from our
Universities, and study of Cicero and Demosthenes, of Homer and Virgil should
be considered as unnecessary for the formation of a scholar, we should regard
mankind as sinking into absolute barbarism, and the gloom of mental darkness as
likely to increase until it should become universal.26

Such sentiments were shared by most—but not all—involved in higher education.

21 Ibid., 51.
22 Ibid.
23 Frederick Rudolph, Curriculum: A History of the American Undergraduate Course of Study Since 1636
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1977), 72-73.
24 Uroksky, 61-62.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid., 57.
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There were those who believed strongly that higher education in American was in
need of change. In addition to the aforementioned attempt to update the curriculum at
Harvard—a partially successful effort at best—Amherst College also established a
parallel program substituting modern languages and other studies for the classics for
those students who chose such a path. The program was dropped in 1829.27
The best known early attempt at building a new model for higher education in
America may be found in Thomas Jefferson’s vision for the University of Virginia.
Jefferson had in mind a very practical education for the student body. He believed that
among the purposes of a higher education were:
To form statesmen, legislators and judges…; To expound the principles and
structure of government, the laws which regulate the intercourse of nations…; To
harmonize and promote the interests of agriculture, manufactures and
commerce…; To develop the reasoning faculties of our youth, enlarge their
minds, cultivate their morals, and instill into them the precepts of virtue and
order; To enlighten them with mathematical and physical sciences, which advance
the arts…; And, generally, to form them to habits of reflection and correct action,
rendering them examples of virtue to others, and happiness within themselves.28

In order to accomplish these goals, Jefferson devised a plan to divide his university into
ten groups, each headed by a professor. Ancient languages would be just one of the
groups, no more and no less important than the others. Among the very practical fields of
study envisioned by Jefferson were modern languages, botany, anatomy, government,
municipal law, the study of projectiles and military architecture (studied within the
division of pure mathematics), and applications of chemistry to agriculture (studied under
the division of physics). Such a plan for a practical education was exactly the sort of
change the authors of the Yale Report resisted.

27 Ibid., 54.
28 Thomas Jefferson, “Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia,” in The Portable
Thomas Jefferson, ed. Merrill D. Peterson, 334-335 (New York: Penguin Books, 1977).
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Historians have put forth various interpretations of the Yale Report. The
traditional interpretation is represented by historian of education Frederick Rudolph who
characterized the report as “a classic statement in the defense of the old order”29 that
“gave a convincing defensive weapon to people who wanted the colleges to stay as they
were.”30 Furthermore, Rudolph argued, the Yale Report “provided a rationale and a
focus for comprehending a course of study that was wandering somewhere in the no-
man’s land between inflexibility and disintegration.”31 However, Rudolph also pointed
out that rather than interpreting the Yale Report as “a dramatic last stand in defense of
impractical studies,” it should be seen as an argument “for the practicality of what others
considered impractical.”32 This interpretation depends on the argument put forth by the
authors of the Yale Report that the study of ancient languages and literature provides a
valuable foundation for those who go on to professional studies.
More recent studies have called into question this traditional view of the Yale
Report as a conservative document written by men actively resisting change of any kind
to the college curriculum. Roger Geiger has argued that the Yale faculty was at the
forefront of reinventing classical study to help prepare students for professional studies.
Yale led the way in changing the basic premise of the college from preparation for the
ministry to preparation for professional study.33 The Yale Report was not a de facto
defense of classical studies as the only proper course of college study, but simply a
statement of the belief that the classics provide a superior foundation for the development

29 Frederick Rudolph, The American College and University: A History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1962), 130.
30 Ibid., 135.
31 Rudolph, Curriculum, 67.
32 Ibid., 13.
33 Roger Geiger, ed., The American College in the Nineteenth Century (Nashville: Vanderbilt University
Press, 2000), 4-5.
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